Welcome to Nick's dining room table. (3 Viewers)

[ARTHUR BISHOP]

Still like it Nick

 

[timwootton]

Oy Nick - You may still get your chance!!!!!!!!
http://www.ornithomedia.com/view/observ_tbweek.php
Get out there and get looking

 

[solitaryVSong]

Assuming you don't follow Tim's advice and head off crane hunting I wonder about doing a fresh version of Cisticola? I think it all ended up very well but now the affect of the repeated washing seems to stand out a bit? But maybe that's just me and the aftereffects of too many days of cold rain here.

Either way I'm happy to see it resolved to your liking. It remains a strikingly bold painting!

 

[nickderry]

haha, didn't go crane hunting - got to do it in the correct order and see the common ones first - 25 flew over work today, for once I'd have liked to have been there. I've been battling out the cisticola - it's always the tiny birds that put up the most fight - the photos above are now obsolete, and three new versions are done, two of which are 'showable' - but as we're all friends here, I'll post all the versions, including those destined for the 'purgatory' folder. Just got to wait for daylight to take the photos!

 

[nickderry]

finally can emerge from the studio - and then go back and do something else than bl**dy Cisticolas! I realised that the composition was far too flat, with th eye being led round and round the picture, but not up - a landing plane should never go round and round, unless in a bad film with screaming people, and as diagonals always help in creating a strong composition (ensures that both sides of the picture are used) I decided to stick the pole in at an angle, and then to hell with how the rest of the picture was going to work. I think I'm done with this one, it's a shame that I'm not familiar with cisticolas (probably spent less than 5 minutes of my life looking at them), because it shows, the part of the painting with the bird is a lot less expressive and a lot more controlled (and overworked!) than the rest. But hey! You can't have it all!:t:

ps - the last 3 are of the same pic - one slightly cropped but in focus, the next showing the whole pic but blurred, and the last one - the devil himself up close and personal!

 

[ARTHUR BISHOP]

what a lovely montage Nick

 

[timwootton]

100,000 views !!!!
Congratulations on 92 of the most inspirational pages on the WWW
Looking forward to the next hundred grand.​

 

[spizaetos]

Very unsusual point of view and very unique composition Nick!
Absolutely genius!

Paschalis

 

[solitaryVSong]

100,000 views !!!!
Congratulations on 92 of the most inspirational pages on the WWW
Looking forward to the next hundred grand.​

Well said and completely agreed to!

You started this one bold and ended it even more boldly. Really a pleasure to see. It's amazing to think that such a wonderful painting came about from a 5-minute view of the Cisticola(which I of course have never seen at all and have to keep checking to make sure that I'm spelling correctly!).

 

[clive2604]

lovely viewpoint and terrific colours!

 

[nickderry]

hooray - no cisticolas to paint today!!!! Got to do one of those really enjoyable scenes of mixed species in an open habitat. So who can name all the species?

 

[timwootton]

Derry at his best - love it!!!
And a very cheeky challenge, too. But just to show my lack of ornithological expertise, I'll set the all rolling with - terns; 1 Sandwich, 3 little (one juv), 2 white-winged black; black-headed gull, dunlin and Kentish Plovers.

 

[nickderry]

Derry at his best - love it!!!
And a very cheeky challenge, too. But just to show my lack of ornithological expertise, I'll set the all rolling with - terns; 1 Sandwich, 3 little (one juv), 2 white-winged black; black-headed gull, dunlin and Kentish Plovers.

too damned good! - except the two white winged terns are also juv little - even if they do look like WWB. :smoke:

 

[solitaryVSong]

NO way in the world I was going to make any guesses, though I probably would have gotten the dunlin right! What a beautiful and accomplished work though! You've melded them altogether perfectly, as though they always hang out together just like that.

 

[clive2604]

lovely painting and a very skilful composition,far too ambitious of me to try and name them without resort to me books though!

 

[Woody]

You've been cracking the Jesucisticola code and happily splashing about amongst the mixed pastel flocks I see! Super work as always, sorry I've not commented for a while.

Mike

 

[mark richards]

very nice nick, no good at id'ing birds...I will leave that to the rest of them...

 

[colleenc]

pure Derry, and really enjoyable work, I got terns and plovers but not which kind.....right up there with Busby's society paintings....

 

[ChrissyM]

Gorgeous light and flow....really brightens up a dull day
I am not very good at ID either, that's how I landed up on a bird forum :-O

 

[nickderry]

Haven't posted for a while - bad me! I've been back on the purple sandpipers again - 3 more versions here, though I think I need to do another now that I've got the composition worked out, limiting myself timewise to make sure I don't fiddle with these devilishly changeable birds!